Improvement in music-notations



AE. P. STEWART.

Music Notation.

No.1.38,104. Patent-ed Apri|22,1a73.

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

EBENEZER P. STEWART, OF COTTON PLANT, MISSISSIPPI.

IMPROVEMENT IN MUSIC-NOTATIONS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 138,104, dated April 22, 1873; application filed December 31, 1872.

To ail whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EBENEZER P. STEW- ART, of Cotton Plant, in the county of Tippah and State of Mississippi, have invented a new and Improved System of Musical Nota` tion 5 and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the saine, reference being had to the accompanying drawing forming a part of this spec ication, in which- Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4i indicate diagrams illustrating my new system.

Similar letters of reference indicate corre spending parts.

The object of this invention is to simplify the method of writing and to facilitate the reading of music.

The invention consists in writing music in figures which indicate the length of tone, and in writin g canceled notes or figures forpauses, or, rather, rests, so that each canceled note will indicate the position and length of rest to be produced. Thus, in Fig. 1, the two red lines of the staff` occupy a position of the note O, according to'the letters written in the same figure. The notes on this staff may be written either by letters or by ordinary notes, but

I prefer to write them, as in Fig. 2, with gures 4, 8, 12, Src., so that each figure will also represent the value of the note and its position. By canceling the notes where rests are to be produced or observed, as also indicated in the several ligures, the length of pause will be fully shown. The duration ot' notes, as represented by figures, may either be as indicated above, Fig. 1 in the drawing-that is to say, by writing 16 for a whole note, 8 for a half, 4 for a quarter, and 1 for one-sixteenth, &c.-or an57 other mode of representing the value by figures may be adopted. The position ot the notes between the lines oi' the staff will be sufiiciently distinct to indicate the pitch of the notes of the scale. Thus, when the key-line is in position of the note O, the note directly above such line will be D, the note equidistant between the key-line and the blue line of the staff will be E, that directly under the blue line F, and the blue line itself G, while the note directly above the blue line will be A, that direetlybelow the key-line of the staff B, and the key-line O, all as described in Fig. 1.

Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent- In a system of music-notation, the method herein described of indicating rests by canceled notes or figures, substantially as shown and described.

EBENEZER P. STEWART.

Witnesses:

WILLIAM P. STEWART. EDWARD M. MGDANIEL. 

